Initiating an Apocalypse

The giddying heights, the abysmal lows. Being published, being rejected. Opposites make excellent fodder for stories.

I was cheered by the arrival of Calliope 144, Summer 2014. My story, “Initiating an Apocalypse,” won third place in the contest for this issue, and, among other things, represents the first time my fiction has actually appeared in print form. Heights!

The story is, as the editor instantly recognized, satire. The plot revolves around a professor who lost his job and who wants the world to share his misery. Having studied ancient religions (the protagonist is based on a friend of mine) our hero calls on the ancient gods to help exact his revenge.

In the background here is Zoroastrianism, perhaps the oldest continually practiced religion in the world. The great god of the Zoroastrians was Ahura Mazda. Since the world appeared to be governed by opposites, he had a foe who was totally evil: Angra Mainyu. Zarathustra taught that the two were in constant conflict.

“Initiating an Apocalypse” imagines what might happen if the two gods came together today, in New Jersey. As it always is with gods, the results are unpredictable.

As with most stories, there is much more going on beneath the words than there is on the surface. This is a story about the despair of unemployment. We’ve all seen those self-made moguls who claim losing their job was the best thing that ever happened to them. Zair Thurston is not one of them.

The friend who gave me the idea for this story has gone through this. He lost a teaching job due to a Fundamentalist takeover and has never recovered. Some days I stop in and find him drink absinthe with the shades all pulled. At least he hasn’t invited the gods back to destroy the world yet.

In the flush of excitement of having this story accepted, I sent out six more to other journals, optimistic of a little traction. None of those were accepted. Abyss!

Life is full of contradictions. The life of the writer especially so. At least when the world ends I’ll have one story that may survive on an actual bit of paper flapping around in the poison, post-apocalyptic air.

Comments

Dusty

My, this thing is dusty. My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic. No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third. With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give. Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out. I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again. I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut? My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago. Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction. Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up. I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best...

Creative Righting

Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world. That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week. That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press. The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor. She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher. I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions. I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor. That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it? You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify. It’s got speculative elements to it. ...

Patterns

There’s a pattern I’m noticing. For fiction publishers. Even if you aim low you’ll find it a struggle. Part of the reason is the pattern. Lots of websites list publishers. The smaller, hungrier presses either eventually close or get to a place where they require an agent to get in. That’s the kiss of death. Although my stories have won prizes, and been nominated for prizes, I can’t get an agent interested. I’ve queried well over a hundred, so the agent route is one of diminishing returns. This too is a pattern. Back to the smaller presses. I check many lists. What I write, you see, is highly idiosyncratic. It’s literary but it’s weird. Publishers don’t know what to do with it. If a smaller press published stuff like this, I’d find it. The pattern includes writers who never get discovered. Ironically, a number of editors of fiction literary magazines (mostly online) tell me they enjoy my wor...

K. Marvin Bruce

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